return as she was that he should do so. He must stay as long as he deemed it best; and even his proposed visit must be given up, if need be. And so Edward stayed. The visit to St. Louis was postponed once or twice, and then put off indefinitely. New commissions were intrusted to him, new opportunities disclosed themselves, new schemes were projected. He extended his field of work into remote sections of the State, and once made his way as far as the valley of the Rio Grande. Even in his busiest moments Ellen was never wholly absent from his thoughts, and he never ended a day without the reflection that his return was so much the nearer. But week followed week into the past, the holidays slipped by, and spring itself overtook him before he could see any definite prospect of getting away. At last, one morning early in March, he wrote to Ellen from Denison that he should be at home before the end of a week. The letter had hardly been mailed when he received one from his wife evincing a depression she had never permitted herself to acknowledge before. She wrote briefly, and, with vague allusions to her health and an avowal of what she called her "lack of firmness," besought him to return. The indefiniteness of this letter troubled Edward. He was disposed to think that it meant much more than it expressed. He knew his wife's excellent constitution so well, and reposed so much trust in her frankness, that he did not believe she was seriously ill; but he did fear that his prolonged absence had tried her cruelly, for he realized that she must have gone through with many a struggle before she could have brought herself to recall him. While he was debating, still under the spell of business, whether to start for home at once or first to settle some important matters at Denison, a telegraph-boy entered the office of the hotel where he was sitting, and handed a despatch to the clerk. "For the gentleman at the window," said the young man. Edward opened the missive with the calmness of an honest and solvent man, but with a pang of fear for Ellen. He read as follows: "We think you had better return at once. BERTHA TERRY."